Shadow Of My Soul
by Grumpr
Summary: AU from 1x08. One broken neck leads to Marcel's victory and determines a whole new course for the city and the Original family. In his prison below the city, a chained-up Klaus and his traitorous sister start a new game. Previously known as 'For Now, For You'.
1. Prologue

**For Now, For You**

 **Synopsis:** AU from 1x08. One broken neck leads to Marcel's victory and determines a whole new course for the city and the Original family. In his prison below the city, a chained-up Klaus and his traitorous sister start a new game.

 **Characters:** Rebekah, Klaus, Marcel.

* * *

 **Chapter One: Prologue**

In which Klaus becomes a prisoner.

* * *

 **oOo**

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a liar, a betrayer.

I have conspired against my own blood and I doubt even your God could save me."

\- _Rebekah, The River in Reverse_

 **oOo**

 _._

 _._

 _._

Klaus is many things, but invincible is not one of them.

It comes as a shock to Rebekah, even though it really shouldn't. She's seen her brother fall before. She's mourned his death once, even.

And yet when she watches her brother's eyes grow dark and golden and hears a furious growl coming from somewhere deep inside his chest, she can't help but think that they had been fools to think they could ever defeat him.

Klaus always wins. Always. It's just the way of the world, really.

Except then it isn't.

.

.

.

In the end a broken neck does the trick. One quick _snap_ , and her brother collapses like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

She watches in silence as Marcel orders his men to bind him with chains dripping in vervain. Her brother's skin burns and hisses when they pour a bucket full of liquid vervain over his wrists. Rebekah's hand clenches around the silver dagger she still holds, but she slowly forces herself to relax her death grip when it becomes clear Niklaus can't feel the pain at all in this state.

The vervain is all the insurance they have. It drains her brother's strength and makes it so he can't break from his binds. When they lock him up the chains will be connected to a running water supply laced with more vervain so they never run dry, because if they do...

It's frightening, the feats of strength her brother is capable of when well enraged. Neither she nor Marcel is willing to leave this up to chance.

.

.

.

It is with Marcel that she carries her brother's limp body down the stairs to the furthest and deepest basement of the city.

The walls are wet here, and the air cool. In the case of a flood this entire section would be submersed. This is where her brother will be held prisoner for as long as they can keep him captive. Rebekah has no real illusions of this being forever, but letting Niklaus go is not an option. A thousand years of life experience have taught her that much. Her brother would want vengeance and would not be satisfied until he made all of them suffer worse than he endured.

Nik's body is not heavy at all where she has his arm swung over her shoulder. He always seemed such a heavy weight to carry, a burden that would drag her to the bottom of the ocean and keep her there on the seafloor until she drowned. He smells of blood, which would be familiar if it weren't for the fact that it was his own.

Marcel is quiet on Klaus' other side, and she's not sure what her lover - more former than present, if she's honest - is thinking about. He has his city back now, she supposes. And they are free to be together.

Somehow she doesn't quite feel the sense of victory she expected.

It's rather anticlimactic when they connect the reinforced steel chains to the bolts in the wall. The vervain trickles down the thick bundle of chains - thicker than Nik's arm - and she can hear the soft hissing as it burns when it touches her brother's skin.

He looks small like this. Far from the fearsome monster that terrorised the world for centuries and more like a broken man. The wolf beaten down and defeated and chained for eternity.

"Let's go," Marcel finally says when he finishes ensuring that all the bolts and and chains are secure and the vervain will keep running.

She ignores him, still looking at Niklaus. Slowly, she steps closer until the front of her jacket brushes his hair where he hangs forward in his chains, the shackles holding him up on his knees.

"Rebekah," Marcel calls from the door. She can almost hear his frown.

"One moment," she says, and kneels before her beaten brother.

She'll have to inform Elijah of what happened, she suddenly realises. Her oldest brother knew nothing of their plot, though he may well have suspected it.

Casting aside any doubts about Elijah's response, she touches Nik's neck. It'll have healed soon and then he'll wake here, in the dark. She uses both hands to tilt his head back so she can look at his face. She needs to remember this, everything here. She won't let herself forget.

Nik's eyelids are only half-closed and behind that his pupils are dilated, making his eyes almost infinitely dark. They stare at her unseeing. Lifeless.

She's seen her share of corpses over the centuries, of course. After a thousand years of living as a vampire, she's hardly a stranger to death, but even so... She averts her eyes.

A warm hand comes to rest on her shoulder. "Rebekah," Marcel says. "It's time to go."

She glances up at him and finds an expression that seems to fall somewhere between pity and wariness. She feels a rush of anger at him for first and yet can't fault him for the second. Against her will, her eyes slide back to Nik's face.

She nods and then, before she can change her mind or think about it too much, she tilts her brother's head forward to rest his forehead against hers.

He's cold and dead against her skin when she kisses his cheek and whispers, "farewell, brother."

Niklaus still doesn't so much as breathe.

She rises and lets his head fall forward again. Marcel is already waiting by the door and holds it open for her. She steps through and keeps walking, not looking back.

They're two doors down the hallway and at the foot of the lowest set of stairs when she hears the first of her brother's screams.

.

.

.

* * *

 **A/N:** In light of season four airing tomorrow night, I figured it was about time to publish something of this fic I've been working on for a while. For what it's worth, I did actually come up with the idea for this fic before the show decided to lock up Klaus, although they've certainly made things easier.

Please consider leaving a review, any feedback would be much appreciated!


	2. Blood

**For Now, For You**

 **Synopsis:** AU from 1x08. One broken neck leads to Marcel's victory and determines a whole new course for the city and the Original family. In his prison below the city, a chained-up Klaus and his traitorous sister start a new game.

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Blood**

In which Rebekah visits her brother.

* * *

 **oOo**

"Wasn't it you who once said I could talk my way out of hell?"

 _\- Klaus to Rebekah, The Bloody Crown_

 **oOo**

.

.

.

She can tell that her brother is awake when she opens the door, but he doesn't look up or acknowledge her presence. The torch she carries casts a pool of warm orange light through the dungeon, not quite reaching the far corners of the room where shadows continue to lurk.

It's quiet down here. This far below the city the sounds of the endless partying and life above are nothing more than a vague thrumming, even to her sensitive ears. Only the sound of her footsteps and the heavy door falling shut behind her break the silence. When she comes to a stop a good five feet away from her brother's kneeling form, she can hear his heavy breathing and the slow thumping of his heart trying to pump blood through his dry veins.

Niklaus only looks up when she places the torch in the holder on the wall. The flames dance almost wildly over his sunken face and like this his eyes seem darker than ever.

"Sister," he croaks, the word broken in his throat but no less venomous. "Have you come to gloat?"

She suppresses the chill that goes down her spine when she hears his voice, hears the anger that's still present behind her brother's dark eyes. Reminding herself that he's powerless, that _she won_ , she forces her tone to be flippant. "Do you think so little of me, brother?"

He closes his eyes. "Why not? You have me imprisoned here, in _chains_ , in the dark. Don't pretend the thought hasn't crossed your mind."

"It has," she acknowledges, "but that is not why I'm here."

At that he opens his eyes again, eyeing her with barely veiled curiosity.

"Marcel wants some of your blood to use in the case of a werewolf attack."

"And Marcellus forced my dear sister to fetch it for him? I must say I'm disappointed."

"No." She retrieved the blade from her pocket. "I volunteered."

Her brother's eyes are trained on the knife as he speaks, sounding intrigued. "Did you, now?"

She steps closer. "The fewer people who know where you are the better. I'm well aware that you have a way with words."

When he lifts his head, his dark eyes seem to pierce hers. "Yes, there is that," he just says.

She holds out her blade again. His eyes flicker to it and then back to her face. "You'll have to feed me first, you know," he states conversationally.

"What?"

"I've been here for over two weeks, dear sister. The blood in my veins is running dry. You won't get much no matter how deep you cut, and I know how skilled you are with the knife."

He smiles, a little pained, and now that she knows where to look for she can see the signs of desiccation even in the dark shadows of the room.

It's a painful process, desiccation, beginning like a hunger somewhere behind your teeth and deep in your gut and getting worse from there. The burning starts on the third day. That's when when the blood runs still in the veins and every part of the body cries out for fresh human blood to replenish itself.

The last time Rebekah suffered the effects it had lasted only a week and it had been torture.

It's been close to three weeks since her brother's defeat.

"You'll have to feed me first," Klaus coaxes her, "to get my blood running before you take it."

Obvious flattery aside, he sounds so reasonable like this and she hates herself for falling for it but she can't see a single flaw in his argument.

"I didn't bring a blood bag and there are no humans anywhere around here," she finally says, frustrated.

He shifts his weight, leaning back and resting on the back of his legs with his arms still always held up in the chains. "Well then," he says. "That's a bit of a conundrum." His eyes are half-lidded and trained carefully on her face when he casually suggests, "you could always feed me your own blood."

She looks at him sharply. "No."

"Why not? Even if I bite you, which I wouldn't, you could just take my blood to heal yourself. Besides-" He lifts his arms, shaking the chains to make his point. "I'm quite incapable of doing much harm, chained up as I am."

"It's not your actions that worry me. Your words are poison, you mean to trick me into letting you free."

His eyes are intense as he still keeps them fixed on her face. He hasn't really looked away the entire time she was here. It's as if he's imprinting her face into his memory, perhaps so he can savour the moment later when he breaks her in punishment. She doesn't trust those eyes, and yet she can't seem to make herself stop listening to him either.

"Even if that were the case, the fact remains that I am at your mercy and you want my blood." He raises his brows, a small smirk appearing. "I couldn't possibly make you do anything you wouldn't want to do."

He's right of course, in that horribly reasonable way. And he's not denying that he's trying to manipulate her, but then again they both know that would have been a lie.

Of course he's trying to manipulate her. Words are all he has left, and beneath his calm exterior she's quite sure he's still seething inside. Nik does not tolerate disappointment. He doesn't forgive and he doesn't forget. He's doing his hardest to make her forget, though. He'll talk to her like this, nicely, like he wouldn't dagger her again at the first opportunity he has, and he'll smile. All of it to make her lower her guard until she slips up.

She knows all of this and yet there's nothing she can do about it. Sure, she could flounce out and leave him here, but Marcel does want Klaus' blood. It's a useful leverage and insurance against werewolves, which might come in handy in the near future.

She could leave Klaus now to get a blood bag or some hapless tourist who would open his vein for her brother, but she wants to get it over with. And Nik isn't lying when he says he's powerless to do anything. She's seen the burns on his wrist from the endless trickle of liquid vervain. He couldn't harm her in his state, especially not after two full weeks of desiccation.

Mind made up, she steps forward again and pulls up her sleeve. "If you try anything I will plunge this through your heart," she warns, lifting her blade.

His eyes flash dark but he smirks. "I wouldn't expect anything less," he replies smoothly.

.

.

.

* * *

 **A/N:** One final update before the season starts, and a glimpse of what this story might entail going forward. Hope you all enjoy. As always, reviews are much appreciated!


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